Chat amongst yourselves, post interesting articles, keep it clean and help me keep track of the massive housing ponzi scheme crash
December 24, 2006
BUBBLETALK: December thread #3 to talk about the housing devastation underway
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223 comments:
1 – 200 of 223 Newer› Newest»Anyone care to comment on Hovnanian(HOV) numbers released last night?
looks like margins are a tumblin'. Their 2007 guidance was pretty weak as well. Closed at $35.25. I'll be listening to the conference call to see if they pull a Toll-type guidance discussion.
Hey that graph looks alot like on oil depletion graph if ya squint.
http://wallstreetexaminer.com
/blogs/winter/?p=208
The spin continues. Check out the T-Shirts this marketing firm is selling.
Bubble T-Shirts
Article about it can be read here: Story
a 40% drop is not impossible
Everyone,
The USA is insolvent:
http://tinyurl.com/ybk7fe
NAR propaganda right?
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Home building activity rebounded from a six-year low in November but builders' applications for future projects fell to the lowest in nine years, the government said Tuesday in a report suggesting the worst is not over for the housing market.
Builders started work on new homes at an annual pace of 1.59 million in November, up from the 1.49 million rate in October, which had been the lowest reading since July 2000, the Commerce Department reported. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast that starts would climb back to an annual rate of 1.55 million.
Building permits, which are seen as a measure of builders' confidence in the market, fell to an annual rate of 1.51 million from a 1.55 million pace in October. That was the lowest building permit level since December 1997, according to government figures. Economists had forecast that permits would slip slightly to a 1.54 million rate.
My cousin in San Anselmo, CA told us that some flood victims in that little North Bay town included new buyers who paid up to a million for 1940s-50s little houses. Adding insult to injury, they are receiving estimates of up to a million to elevate these cottages, with the result that some cannot afford to live in their newly-purchased homes. Lastly, long-time residents paying low property taxes found out that by accepting FEMA checks they brought on new property assessments. What a mess!
http://www.israelna tionalnews. com/news. php3?id=117696
Iran Will Acquire Nuke Weapon By 2009-10
22:14 Dec 18, '06 / 27 Kislev 5767
(IsraelNN.com) Mossad spy master Meir Dagan told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday that the time for stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is growing shorter.
Dagan told the committee that Iran will succeed in developing a nuclear bomb by 2009 or 2010. He said that the Islamic Republic expects to have put another 3,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges in place within the next year.
The machines will be located in bunkers, he said.
One observation:
For the small to mid-sized builder, continuing operations is the key to staying afloat. Mos of these builders are heavily leveraged so that means as long as the banks fund, they can keep the overhead paid for. There is always hope that they can sell.
So as long as a loan committment is in place, the builders will continue to build. I beleive what is happening with new permit numbers is that banks are either re-negotiating terms, or not advancning once existing permits have started.
This is how the builders got in trouble in the early 90's. Building against the hope that a buyer will appear. Since its the bank's money who cares if the house doesn't sell? At least the overhead got covered for a few more months!
you guys are sometihng else...housing starts fall you see evidence of a crash. housing starts rebound sharply you see evidence of a crash
"builders' applications for future projects fell to the lowest in nine years"
any questions?
Builders started work on new homes at an annual pace of 1.59 million in November, up from the 1.49 million rate in October, which had been the lowest reading since July 2000
-----------
They have too. There are alot of people that bought blueprints and they want their houses built NOW!
x-ref those stats with whether they are 2nd or 3rd homes.
Why is Keith wrong? Prices are down all over the country. So what if they build more houses, it just means the crash will happen faster, rather than slower. Ya know...that little thing called supply vs. demand?
Miss America is about to be fired and all you can think of is housing?
Or, or, or, or the builders see some hope? nahh. they are building more because they want to have more homes they can't sell....makes sense to me
Listen...when housing prices start rising again, then and only then can you come on here spouting off about how Keith was wrong, there was/is no housing/credit bubble etc. etc. Until then, you're just an MSM puppet buying all the "all is well" spew.
CRL Report: Record Foreclosures Expected for Subprime Market
Haley Settle | 12.18.06
The United States could be facing one of its worst mortgage foreclosure crises, with an anticipated $100 billion or more lost from record foreclosures in the subprime market, according to the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). The default of subprime mortgages originated from 1998 through the first half of 2006 is expected to hit low-income and minortiy borrowers the hardest.
The report—which will be released in full during a live, phone-based national news event (with full, two-way Q&A) at 1:30 p.m. ET tomorrow—is based on the first nationwide study of how subprime mortgages perform and includes projected foreclosure data for all major metropolitan statistical areas.
Speakers for the phone-based news event include Michael D. Calhoun, president of the CRL; Pat Vredevoogd Combs, president of the National Association of Realtors; and Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
To participate in the news event, call 800.860.2442 and ask for the “mortgage foreclosure crisis” news event. An audio file of the news event will be on the CRL’s Web site, www.responsiblelending.org/, at 6 p.m. ET the same day.
The CRL is a national nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization dedicated to protecting homeownership and family wealth by working to eliminate abusive financial practices. For additional information, visit www.responsiblelending.org/.
>> Miss America is about to be fired and all you can think of is housing?
Aw, c'mon - the REALLY BIG news is that the new season of American Idol is about to start! Yeah - let the paryting begin!
Keith,
Your site was covered below.
HousingPanic Calls On Congress And Bush To Repeal The Big Wet REIC Kiss That Caused The Housing Bubble
http://usmarket.seekingalpha.com/article/22493
Rao
hilarious headline today - housing rebounds. Fire Sales do tend to move product
Meanwhile, future permits are at a nine-year low
MSM - gotta love 'em. Realtor trolls - gotta not love 'em
All I can say is it's getting nasty out there. Lots of anger from those who can't see the reality of fraud in an industry that fueled more fraud.
Some trolls not worth a response. Wow are they angry. I have a feeling it will get alot worst.
1. It's a lot not alot.
2. It is a lot worse, not a lot worst.
This is great, getting financial advice from illiterate high school droouts. Tell me more oh wise one...
"I have a feeling it will get alot worst."
Dollar down after inflation, housing data
Dollar down 64 Anonymous wake up and pull your boyfriends tongue out of your ass. Must be a nice place to live that La La land I'll have to check it out sometime.
Anonymous said...
1. It's a lot not alot.
2. It is a lot worse, not a lot worst.
----------------
WE HAVE A REALTOR ENGLISH MAJOR WITH US!! Tell me How'z business ? What Sale got you down?
but, it can never happen here..it is different in the USA. have you heard this before! inflation and the fed being forced to raise rates will finish off housing. and, of course the huge wave of forclosures coming.
Forbes Magazine:
"There are ominous signs that home equity values starting to wobble"
Business Week:
"A housing bubble may be developing"
USA TODAY:
"A big decline in a handful of key markets could help drive the USA back into recession."
Oh wait a second, these are all quotes from 2002.
since Keith told me so
pop quiz #13
Inflation in the next 10 years will be
a) 1,000%
b) 5,000%
c) 10,000%
d) infinity cubed percent
POP QUIZ #15
The real deficit/debt numbers are
a) 4.6 trillion / $50 trillion
a) 14.6 trillion / $500 trillion
a) 144.6 trillion / $5000 trillion
a) 1444.6 trillion / $50000 trillion
Report Reveals 2.2 Million Borrowers Face Foreclosure on Subprime Home Loans.
http://www.responsiblelending.org/issues/mortgage/reports/page.jsp?itemID=31214551
BREAKING NEWS!
Worst of housing slump is over
By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
Tue Dec 19, 3:06 PM ET
WASHINGTON - The worst of the housing slump is over, although some pain is likely to linger, an adviser to President Bush suggested Tuesday.
This year's housing slowdown — which came off five straight years of booming activity — was a key force behind the overall economy's loss of momentum in the late summer.
Housing stocks are not in recovery, not even a dead cat bounce, but simply shorts squeezing.
I checked foreclosrure.com and there are 256 homes listed in my zip code. OUCH!! Goodbye any hope of selling in 2007 for a decent price. It's a good thing I like where I live.
Keith predicted esculating troll activity as things get worse. He was right.
Mike Shedlock / Mish
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
70’s Rerun
Similarities
War in Vietnam war then vs. the war in Iraq now
Rising oil and commodity prices
Differences
Rising Oil prices [demand side shock vs. supply side shock]
Spiraling wages then vs. declining wages now
Wage and price controls then
Consumer Debt levels – Significant ability to take on more debt in the 70's
Housing down payments – 20% then 0% now
Two family incomes now vs. one family income then
The power of unions - then
Globalization & Global wage arbitrage - now
Outsourcing - now
Productivity improvements - The internet and other innovations - now
Declining credit standards - now
Downfall of communism
Long term interest rates under 5% - now
New creative financing ideas running rampant - now
Massive use of derivatives - now
China, India, and Emerging Markets
The differences noted above are staggering and Eric agreed.
20's Rerun
Throughout the 1920s, the Fed deliberately and unwisely stimulated the stock market by keeping the “call rate,” that is, the interest rate on bank loans to the stock market, artificially low. –
Margin rates were just lowered here and the FF rate which was lowered to 1% supported a big housing boom.
In the late 1920s, bank credit propelled a massive real estate boom in New York City, in Florida, and throughout the country. We now have the biggest housing bubble in history.
In the 1920’s there was a massive infusion of money (gold) from war torn Europe stimulating our economy.
We currently have a massive stimulus of cheap money from Japan and China via and various carry trades and cheap credit supporting our economy.
In the 20’s we intervened in foreign exchange markets to enhance or stabilize Europe’s power to buy our exports.
We currently are involved in disputes with China over currency issues attempting to get China to buy more of our goods.
There were massive productivity improvements in the 20’s along with the industrial revolution and assembly line processing.
The 90’s – 2000’s productivity miracle was the internet. Huge boom periods on account of disruptive innovation. By contrast there was no such innovative disruptions in the 70’s.
In late 20’s credit was expanding at a rapid pace but there was no need for additional productive capacity.
Today GDP is rapidly falling but credit is still rising. There is no pent up demand for homes, restaurants, retail stores, strip malls, autos, truck, etc, just as there was no need for additional assembly line production in 1929. Speculation replaced productive capacity just as it is today.
In 1929 leverage was extreme via stock margin. In 2006 credit derivatives leverage is extreme to the tune of 340 trillion dollars worth with no one really understand exactly what the counterparty risk is.
A few days before leaving office in March 1929, Coolidge called American prosperity “absolutely sound” and assured everyone that stocks were “cheap at current prices.” Based on the “Treasury Model” and unsustainable earnings growth due to financing activities, we are once again told time and time again that “the economy is sound” and stocks are cheap at current prices.
"Keynesian Folly", along with other massive government interventions managed to convert what would likely have been a short, sharp recession into a chronic, permanent, stagnation with an unprecedented high unemployment that only ended with World War II.
Massive government interventions between 2002 and 2005 prevented a badly needed recession and instead created the biggest asset bubble in history.
In 1933 gold coins were confiscated – now we have a threat of nickels being confiscated.
At the time, the stock market of 1929 was the biggest asset bubbles in history. We have now vastly exceeded all previous credit bubbles.
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was signed into law on June 17, 1930. There are renewed threats of tariffs in the U.S. Congress right now.
WASHINGTON - The worst of the housing slump is over, although some pain is likely to linger, an adviser to President Bush suggested Tuesday.
-----------------
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
My prediction: Bubbble bursts on 14 Jan 06. The day Hillary Clinton is sworn into the White House.
Then we can go back to the old mantra of "it" being (a) Clinton's fault!!
...Lousy greedy Liberals defrauding millions of middle class Americans....
bursts on 14 Jan 06. The
^^
'08 that is.... damn liberal keyboard!
6 strategies to survive the real estate bust
Last year the question was whether the housing boom would slow down. Now it's how bad it will get.
Fortune's Ellen Florian Kratz helps you navigate the market.
By Ellen Florian Kratz, Fortune writer
December 18 2006: 5:44 AM EST
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Bret and Tricia Baird are all too aware of what they're getting into.
doofus, innauguration is jan 20th
I predict that realtwhores will be giving head to move houses in 2007-2015!
housing panic is the wrong name...
mortgages are backed by derivatives...
the blog to have is "Derivative armegeddon"...
How long did the longest NATIONAL housing downturn last? 2, 3 years.
Oh but this time it's different you say. Wait wasn't that what everyone was saying in 2003 and 2004? Well no it wasn't different on the way up then and it's not different on the way down. This downturn will last 2 to 3 years just like every other downturn has in the past. We're already a year into it which means we have 1-2 years to go. Some markets will be hit hard just like some markets are always hit hard.
It's not different this time, it's never different that's what makes it all so predictable.
And no I'm not a realtor just someone with some common sense.
BUSH DEVELOPING ILLEGAL
BIOTERROR WEAPONS
FOR OFFENSIVE USE
By Sherwood Ross
In violation of the U.S. Code and international law, the Bush administration is spending more money (in inflation-adjusted dollars) to develop illegal, offensive germ warfare than the $2-billion spent in World War II on the Manhattan Project to make the atomic bomb.
So says Francis Boyle, the professor of international law who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 enacted by Congress. He states the Pentagon “is now gearing up to fight and ‘win’ biological warfare” pursuant to two Bush national strategy directives adopted “without public knowledge and review” in 2002.
right here ANON
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Nickels, Copper, Lumber
This post is a continuation of Pennies, Nickels, and Dollars with an additional look at copper and lumber. For those who missed it here is a brief recap:
People who melt pennies or nickels to profit from the jump in metals prices could face jail time and pay thousands of dollars in fines, according to new rules out Thursday.
Soaring metals prices mean that the value of the metal in pennies and nickels exceeds the face value of the coins. Based on current metals prices, the value of the metal in a nickel is now 6.99 cents, while the penny's metal is worth 1.12 cents, according to the U.S. Mint.
"The nation needs its coinage for commerce," U.S. Mint director Ed Moy said in a statement. "We don't want to see our pennies and nickels melted down so a few individuals can take advantage of the American taxpayer. Replacing these coins would be an enormous cost to taxpayers."
Under the new rules, it is illegal to melt pennies and nickels. It is also illegal to export the coins for melting. Travelers may legally carry up to $5 in 1- and 5-cent coins out of the USA or ship $100 of the coins abroad "for legitimate coinage and numismatic purposes."
Note the irony in the mint for being concerned about those who would "take advantage of the American taxpayer" when the actual production cost for each penny is now up to 1.73 cents according to the Houston Chronical. Year in and year out the mint wastes money by coining pennies.
2006 Coin Production Figures
Click on chart for a better view.
www.dollarcollapse.com
freak'n moron anons!
Report Reveals 2.2 Million Borrowers Face Foreclosure on Subprime Home Loans
Tuesday December 19, 1:30 pm ET
Billions of Home Ownership Wealth to be Lost by Minority Americans; Chart Contains Detailed MSA-Specific Projections of Home Foreclosure Impacts
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- A new Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) study reveals that 2.2 million American households will lose their homes and as much as $164 billion due to foreclosures in the subprime mortgage market. Titled, "Losing Ground: Foreclosures in the Subprime Market and Their Cost to Homeowners," the CRL study is the first comprehensive, nationwide review of millions of subprime mortgages originated from 1998 through the third quarter of 2006.
CRL's research suggests that risky lending practices have triggered the worst foreclosure crisis in the modern mortgage market, projecting that one out of five (19.4%) subprime loans issued during 2005-2006 will fail.
"In the subprime sector, the most vulnerable borrowers are sold the most dangerous loans," said Mike Calhoun, CRL president. "At $164 billion, the losses from foreclosures could pay for the college educations of four million kids. For families who lose their houses because their loans fail, savings and economic security will be way out of reach."
The report discusses a number of factors that drive subprime foreclosures -- in the majority of cases, borrowers receive high-risk loan features, packed into an adjustable rate mortgage with a low start rate, that is approved without considering whether the homeowner can afford to pay the loan after the rate rises.
The only way forward is to buy Foreclosures because that way, at least you might get a deal in an otherwise impossible market.
Anonymous said...
doofus, innauguration is jan 20th
Wednesday, December 20, 2006 2:38:27 AM
Ya, sorry bro he does get alittle bit longer to completely fvck this country up.
Check out this latest News Release on the future of the Canadian Economy and Housing Market.
Does this type of Forecasting look like what was being said about the US Housing Market a year ago??
Any opinions on the future of Canadian RE?
External forces dampening Canadian economy in 2007: TD Economics
http://www.cnbc.com/id/16293892
MORTGAGE APPLICATIONS SLUMP
By Insert Byline | 20 Dec 2006 | 07:16
Mortgage applications slumped last week, weighed down by a plunge in demand for home
refinancing loans, as interest rates climbed from recent lows, an industry trade group said.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and purchasing loans, for the week ended Dec.
15 decreased 10.2% to 647.6 from the previous week's 721.2, which was its highest level in over a year.
Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 6.10%, up 0.08 percentage point from the previous week. Two weeks prior, 30-year mortgage rates fell to
5.98%, the lowest level since October 2005.
Interest rates, however, were below year-ago levels of 6.22%.
The MBA's seasonally adjusted purchase index fell 5.9% to 436.5. The index was also below its year-ago level of 453.1.
The purchase index is considered a timely gauge of U.S. home sales.
The group's seasonally adjusted index of refinancing applications decreased 14.6% to 1,968.8. A year earlier the index stood at 1,418.1.
The refinance share of applications decreased to 50.8% from 52.6% the previous week.
Fixed 15-year mortgage rates averaged 5.82%, up from 5.75%. Rates on one-year adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) increased to 5.82% from 5.76%.
The ARM share of activity decreased to 23.6% of total applications from 24.9% the previous week, its lowest since October 2003.
The MBA's survey covers about 50% of all U.S. retail residential loans. Respondents include mortgage banks, commercial banks and thrifts.
© 2006 CNBC, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Two Comments:
1. Notice that new hottie reporter called "INSERT BYLINE" ? I can't wait to see her on TOUT TV.
2. Within the overall news on the applications decrease, is the data on the purchase index - my read was that not just refis but mortgages for sales decreased too.
3. And this is all despite rates being lower than a year ago..
4. IMO, long term treasuries are not going down for 6 months if one ignores the small effects that the FED rate changes can have on them directly. But the FED rates, if the median CPI number that they themselves claim they use is any guide shouldn't come down if they truly stick to their charter and want to keep inflation under control.
I can't see any chance of help for housing from the mortgage rates side for 6 months.
-K
Got a topic for you kieth - rents vs purchase payments (I suggest using 30 yr fixed at 80% for the purchase price) You figure out how to add taxes and insurance. This RE scum's site has sales and rentals in a area of SoCal that is still expanding.
http://www.cabesthomes.com/
BTW, I found his site because he pops up a few below your site doing a search on "housing panic blog" on www.vivisimo.com
He must have housing panic as a keyword!
December 19, 2006
Hi Steve,
This past Saturday a good friend of mine went to a Wells Fargo bank near the Fashion Island area of Newport Beach. He tried to cash a $1,600 check from one of his customers and was told by the bank that they didn't have enough money to cash it! They told him to move out of the line so other customers could be helped but he refused. He then raised his voice and said "Are you telling me that your bank here in Newport Beach doesn't have enough money to cash my $1,600 check?" The bank manager then told him to leave the line or they would get someone to remove him from the line. He told them to go ahead and try and the manager then opened a new teller window and moved the other customers to it. My friend decided to leave when he saw the manager on the phone as they were probably calling the cops. Can you believe this??? Newport Beach is one of the wealthiest communities in Southern California and they would cash this check because they didn't have enough money on hand!
More on Russia.
Anyone who thinks the US will seamlessly transition from ME oil to Russian oil is fairly naive.
Those with oil will nationalize it and use as leverage against the US.
Got Bike?
TWELVE MONTHS: THE SHORT LIFE OF COMFORTABLE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT RUSSIA’S ENERGY POLICY IN 2006
http://jamestown. org/edm/article. php?article_ id=2371751
By Vladimir Socor
Friday, December 15, 2006
The Kremlin’s confiscatory assault on Royal Dutch Shell and threats to other Western energy majors in Russia on Black Tuesday, December 12 (see EDM, December 13) is the latest in a series of moves disproving Western wishful thinking about Russia’s energy policy.
That wishful thinking burgeoned, ironically, in the wake of the January 2006 Russian gas supply cutoff to Ukraine, which rippled downstream in a number of European countries. While the “wake-up call” for coordinated Western energy policies resounded mainly in the editorial pages after that crisis, most Western governments and energy corporations embraced the set of illusory assumptions that are now being laid to rest by Moscow’s own actions.
According to talk around the web early this morning, Casey Serin has been arrested in a real estate office, and all the computers there have been confiscated.
The source:
http://www.whofailedtoday.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?id=175528
Sorry folks - false alarm - Exxon says all is well.
I will not be posting anymore on oil depletion and the coming die off.
Full steam ahead captain - all clear.
The Outlook for Energy: A View to 2030 (PDF)
ExxonMobil
...here are ExxonMobil's key conclusions:
By 2030, energy demand will increase by about 60% compared to 2000. While the vast majority of this increase will occur in non-OECD nations, efficiency gains throughout the world will remain important.
The global energy mix will look very similar 25 years from now. Oil, gas and coal will be predominanat.
Resources are adequate to support global demand growth. However, access to these resources and large, timely investments will be needed to ensure people have accesss to reliable energy supplies. Global trade, particularly for oil and natural gas, will continue to grow.
Lastly, technology will remain critical to success in all aspects of our energy challenges, whether mitigating demand growth, expanding supplies, or improving the environment.
"What we've got here is (a) failure to communicate..." 1967 Cool Hand Luke
"www.dollarcollapse.com" is not a real source my friend
an example of a real source would be any of the following:
- AP
- reutuers
- bbc
- agence presses
- msnbc
- cnn
- fox news
- ny times
- la times
- abc news
- nbc news
- cbs news
www.dollarcollapse.com is a front end for a newsletter that is sold for $250. In this newsletter they tell you buy gold and then profit from people buying gold.
How can anyone possibly take what they say objectively? It would be like oh I dunno the NAR saying all is well so people keep buying homes.
I get the feeling that a lot of you own some of these web sites/newsletters yourselves and are sending these poor slobs over there to buy your garbage
I lied.
http://articles. moneycentral. msn.com/Investin g/ContrarianChro nicles/NoMoreBub bles.aspx? wa=wsignin1. 0
Contrarian Chronicles 12/18/2006 12:00 AM ET
No more bubbles to bail out the housing bubble
The negatives keep growing, this time unchecked. The stock market, the real estate market and the economy will get in sync on the downside -- it's just a matter of when.
By Bill Fleckenstein
It is essential that folks understand the past, in order to prepare for what lies ahead. That the Fed was able to precipitate a housing bubble to bail out the equity bubble was a miracle. But there is no next bubble to bail out the housing bubble. The fact that the economic strength of the past few years was powered by a housing mania -- an unstable, unsustainable engine of growth -- is what one needs to understand to realize that the ramifications of the housing bubble's unwinding will be brutal.
What has, of course, been impossible to determine in advance is the exact timing of when the stock market, the real estate market and the economy get in sync to the downside -- i.e., "the next time down," to quote my euphemistic, forever-and- a-day-in- the-making outcome.
I expect it to occur in 2007 -- because everything seems lined up, as never before, for that scenario to play out. . . .
Ho hum, another DOW record set...
Ho hum, S&P 500 is up 14.3% this year...
Ho hum, 10 year bond is under 4.60%...
Yup just another day in the apocalypse on our way to 1000% inflation and the end of the US as we know it...
PMI is will be deductible in 2007:
From money.cnn.com
The legislation allows taxpayers who itemize their deductions to deduct premiums paid for mortgage insurance - which typically is required when home buyers purchase their homes with less than 20 percent down.
Currently, only the interest paid on one's mortgage is deductible if the taxpayer itemizes deductions.
The new insurance premiums deduction will only apply to mortgage insurance contracts issued in 2007 and is only available to taxpayers whose adjusted gross incomes do not exceed $110,000 ($55,000 for married taxpayers filing separately).
What's up with zillow?
I checked my home and it says it lost $8100 in the past 30 days. I also checked my neighbors. To the left of me it lost $2200, to the right of me it gained $4800 and a few houses down it gained $10,400.
I'm not debating whether the values went up or down. I know it went down. But how can there be such a big discrepancy between neighboring homes? Is zillow trustworthy in general?
Shillow...err...Zillow is crap.
Anyone notice more crime in their area/town?
Here in Reno, there were a couple of BofA robberies, and even a hold up at a Kentucky Fried Children restaurant.
This kind of crime is going to esclate with more layoffs as the house building slows down.
I'm getting a kick out of today's news that the NAR is 'concerned' about subprime foreclosures ... and that they're committed to educating borrowers.
How about the truth: they're committed to doing whatever it takes to get a commission?
Uhm yeah it's called Christmas. Bank robberies, home break-ins always increase around this time of year. Nothing new about that.
"Anyone notice more crime in their area/town? Here in Reno, there were a couple of BofA robberies, and even a hold up at a Kentucky Fried Children restaurant."
Zillow has a new feature, where one can adjust their homes features, so that the price is not soley based on square footage and neighborhood prices. Maybe that's it...
Is that a lot? Seriously. Sounds like a lot but isn't that what sub-prime is all about. If sub-primes had low foreclosure rates, they'd be prime to begin with wouldn't they?
So put it in context. It is 1 in 5 today. This is startling because last year it was _________________
If the answer is also 1 in 5, does it mean anything?
"1 in 5 subprime loans to go into foreclosure per CNBC."
nah, it is 2 separate numbers, the zestimate which is zillow's number and "my estimate" which is what the owner ajusts
"Zillow has a new feature, where one can adjust their homes features, so that the price is not soley based on square footage and neighborhood prices. Maybe that's it..."
I pleasure myself to the Apocalypse!
Keith is deleting my posts all over the place...wonder what he's afraid of. No profanity, no racism, no personal attacks on anyone just a different point of view.
If I were Keith I would delete ALL ANON posts.
Gutless - faceless - meaningless drive by posts that add nothing to this group.
Down with ANONs!!!!
Is It Now Illegal To Link To Other Websites?
Landmark Sydney legal ruling sets precedent for wholesale devastation of Internet news websites and blogs
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy.
"Keith is deleting my posts all over the place...wonder what he's afraid of. No profanity, no racism, no personal attacks on anyone just a different point of view".
Maybe he wouldn't delete your posts if you didnt hide behind the Anon name.
ANONs are like ass hair...
pluck it....
they grow back.
Down with ANONs!!!!!
you pluck your ass hair? You a porn star or somethin'? That is soooo gay.
RE: Historical Subprime default/foreclosure rates.
I've tried to find this stuff ( what else is there to do when there's a blizzard blowing outside). OFHEO, FDIC and the 12 Federal Reserve Banks publish their research as do credit agencies like Experian and mortgage insurers like MGIC. I can't find them. The problem is that its "different this time" - subprime residential mortgage lending is a new phenomenon in the USA.
There is data on automotive lending. http://www.ncua.gov/RiskAlert/2005/05-RISK-01.pdf
A rough and ready eyeball estimate from the above would be that subprime automotive default rates are 20%. And prime default rates are 4%. So, subprime autoloan default rates are 5 times the prime auto loan default rate.
There is historic data for mortgage defaults.
http://www.phil.frb.org/files/br/br_q3-2006-3_residential_mortgage.pdf
Its 1.8% for mortgages with an 80% Loan to value ( the old standards for how much money you had to put down). Then, extrapolating from auto loans, we'd expect a historic default rate of 9% for subprime home loans. So expected default rates of 20% are higher than expected and not compensated for by higher interest rates and service charges.
This is all rough and ready - But still, its a ballpark. And some of the factors I've excluded make it all much worse for subprime loans. All the numbers above are for fixed interest rates. Subprime is very much a ARM phenom. Default rates depend on unemployment ( ability to pay ) AND on Loan to Value ratios. With rising interest rates, the ability to pay is compromised. With falling house prices, that LTV increases and incentivizes default. So far, employment has mostly held up. If THAT rolls over things will be even worse.
-K
sk,
apples to orange comparison..car to home loan...you default on a car you need to take the bus to work, you default on a home you sleep on a park bench...not quite the same incentive to pay on time is it?
When people use the word a lot incorrectly it bothers me as well. Proper English is not a reflection of snobbery or even being an English major. Speaking your language correctly is a representation of your ability to communicate properly. If you want to state a fact and sound credible you must support these claims with correct word usage. A lot are two words, pass the word (or words) along
And sentences usually have a [.] after them.
" A lot are two words, pass the word (or words) along "
Even A LOT of English majors in today's world of automatic passing in high school and grade inflation in college cannot write properly.
"When people use the word a lot incorrectly it bothers me as well. Proper English is not a reflection of snobbery or even being an English major. "
RE: bubble schmubble - apples to oranges comparison.
If there is a lack of historical data for an asset, the standard approach is to use a proxy. I chose autos.
You have a fair point about the lack of correlation between autos and homes from the use value perspective. Theft of the asset is another problem with using autos as the proxy asset class.
From other perspectives autos stack up as a proxy. Auto are the 2nd largest purchase people make in their lives after a home - so from the size of loan aspect it looks ok. Legally recognised title to the property is as well organized for autos as it is for houses. Insurance of the asset( having lived in LA I'm well aware of the low rates of liability insurance - that's not relevant here ) is similarly well documented so that it can be enforced by the lender.
If this blizzard goes on for 3 days, I'll try and put some error bounds on the estimates derived from using autos as a proxy asset class :-)
-K
RE: RE: bubble schmubble - apples to oranges comparison
On further thought: I only used autos to derive the ratio between subprime to prime default rates and then applied that ratio to prime home loans default rates to get the subprime home loan rates.
i.e I Assume:
SPH /PH = SPA/PA
so PPH = (SPA/PA)*PH
So the fact that people would more readily default on a car for its reduced necessity value applies at a certain level to BOTH type of borrowers, prime and subprime and it ought to cancel out - as a first approximation at least - and not figure in the ratio.
-K
blizzard? que? oh right you suckers up north have to deal with that white stuff that falls from the sky, I forget about that..heh heh
But the point about 20% subprime defaults, there's no data to compare from even a few years ago? Subprimes didn't just get invented last month, they've been around for several years
Those damn immigrants!! Man I knew they were the reason education and health care was crappy, I had no idea they were also causing the housing bubble. Anything else we can blame dem 'eemgrants for? The blizzard s.k. is experiencing?
"Housing starts are up but permits are down. I guess the builders think they will be able to develop their land inventory and flog off the houses. Considering they are building with immigrant labor, they should still break-even"
Found an interesting piece in BW on "Foreclosure Factories".
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_52/b4015147.htm
RE: bubble schmubble
-----------------------
But the point about 20% subprime defaults, there's no data to compare from even a few years ago? Subprimes didn't just get invented last month, they've been around for several years
----------------------
I agree subprime lending has been around for several years. Some stats I've seen are 5% of total residential mortgage lending in 1994, 11% in 2003 to 33% in 2005
http://www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/regional/ro20062q/na/2006_summer04.html
But you need some stationarity in the data to be able to realistically project forward from it. Over the period 1994 to now we haven't had the conditions, primarily rising LTV ratios that we are trying to predict for. And that single term subprime residential lending has over the 12 years morphed into so many different things. The subprime lending of 2005 is nothing like the early years - the Interest Only, PayOption, low documentation, neg-AM ( WITH EARLY PREPAYMENT penalties as they exist now ) all exist in significant percentages now and didn't exist in sizeable amounts before - for example low/no-documentation loans as a percent of subprime lending went up from (0% in 1994 to 25% n 2001 to 40% in 2004 ). There is insufficient history of past default rates over all types of economic conditions to give us some sort of "long term average rate of default" for these types of loans.
But if you can find some let me know - If I can find that rate, heyy.. I'll think seriously about buying low grade Mortgage backed securities, or a mutual fund that invests in them - if the price is right. Come to that, the market has already passed judgment on low grade MBS's recently. There were no bids - for TWO DAYS 10 days ago! Next time I look up them up I'll post what the market is saying about them.
-K
Angola joins OPEC
RE: SUBPRIME DEFAULT RATE
1. Where is this 20% figure coming from? From Bloomberg 11/24/06:
"The percentage of so-called sub-prime loans delinquent by 90 days or more, in foreclosure or turned into repossessed properties, rose to 2.52% from 2.01% in September, the Arlington, Va.-based investment bank said last month"
The increase was 25%. But no way 20% of subprime loans are in default.
2. The increase from 2.01 to 2.52 is a 25% increase.
3. In 2001 the rate that is now 2.52% was....drum roll please....3.12%. This was an increase from 2.6% in 2000 or an increase of 20%. In the mid 90s it was as high as 7%.
Conclusions:
1. By historical standards today's default rate for subprimes is low.
2. The last time an increase of 20% plus occured, it led to 4 years of unprecedented housing appreciation nationwide.
Neocon Lapdogs: "Round Up Traitors And Put Them In Camps"
Congress preserves and improves internment camps and neocon critics call for them to be used to contain "traitors"
Steve Watson & Paul Watson
Infowars.net
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
In a discussion concerning Joy Behar comparing Donald Rumsfeld to Hitler, a Fox News guest yesterday asserted that people like her should be rounded up and put in detention camps because they are traitors.
http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-10-is-available!-Global-systemic-crisis-in-2007-Financial-sector-Another-bubble-close-to-bursting_a317.html
nuff said!!!
http://english. aljazeera. net/NR/exeres/ 7A2ACB68- C9AC-4CF9- A723-7D242E4862C 4.htm
Irving wins Holocaust denial appeal
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2006
20:50 MECCA TIME, 17:50 GMT
The British historian David Irving is set to be deported from Austria after winning an appeal against a three-year prison sentence for denying the Holocaust.
The court ruled that Irving should serve the remainder of his sentence on probation.
He has been in prison since his arrest in November 2005.
A Real-Life RealtWhore:
Check out this Craigslist post!
-------------------------
bubble shmubble:
In the mid 90s it was as high as 7%.
------------------------
Got a link to the original source for that please ? Also I tried to locate that bloomberg article you've quoted, dated 11/24/06. No luck. Got a link for that ?
With stats, the devil is always in the details so reading the original article is useful.
-K
OOOOHHHHH I see. an analyst on CNBC says something, we take it as gospel cuz CNBC analysts are always, always right. I remember an analyst on CNBC saying something about Dow 36K...what was his name again...or that CNCB analyst who predicted pets.com would be at $500...geez who was he again, the name escapes me...
Analysts are predicting that 20% of all sub-prime loans WILL default. You are citing data for sub-prime loans that are CURRENTLY in default.
The 20% figure is a figure of subprimes that are likely to default:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061220/apfn_subprime_mortgages_report.html?.v=1
Remember the worse housing drop in history was reported in November 2006, YOY data from Oct 2005 - Oct 2006. It has not been reported that housing prices have been rising. Will need the next report as to whether the prices rose or fell in November; in the housing report due out in late December. With the expected defaults coming, one does not know whether housing prices will rise or fall, or if they might flatten out. There may be some profitability in building houses at these prices or else the homebuilders would not be in the process of building more than a million homes on an annual basis. The US Bureau of Census showed close to a 10 percent rental vacancy rate. The subprime renters moved into homes of "their own". In some areas the rental vacancy rate is so thin, it is almost non-existent. In economically depressed cities there were acres of boarded up homes and fresh factory closings as China yet had 300 million people earning less than ten dollars a day and were lining up for non-union factory jobs.
sk:
1. Bloomberg source:
http://www.freep.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061124/
BUSINESS04/611240422/1017
2. default rates historically:
http://www.phil.frb.org/econ/conf/retailcreditrisk/
Cowan--default%20correlation.pdf
page 19
And my point sailed right over yours....do you believe everything an "analyst" on CNBC says? They said DOW 36K. They said pets.com $500. They say all sorts of shit, usually dead wrong. My roommate in college has been on CNBC. Awesome guy, still parties like he's 22, hottest piece of ass gf you can imagine which he can afford on his salary/insane bonus....but I wouldn't trust him to tell me the sky is blue let alone what to invest in. And he knows he's full of shit as much as I know he's full of shit.
To say the default rate will go from 2.5% to 20% when the highest it's ever been is 7% is DOW 36K territory.
"The point, that went sailing over your head, was that you interpreted the statistic incorrectly. Again, its 20% of all sub-prime loans will default, not 20% are currently in default."
Richard never gets any rim jobs unless he plucks his ass hair.
Lick that stinky donut, whiteboy!
re: bubble shmubble
Thanks for the links.. Looking at it right now.
I think I can help out on the source for the expected eventual 20% subprime mortgage default rate ( for subprime mortgages originated since 1998 ). Thats total defaults, not rates of change YOY or anything like that according to my reading of the itulip article ( http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=723). It possibly stems from a CLR ( Center for Responsible Lending, whoever THEY are ) report. Excerpts from www.itulip.com
-----------------
19th Dec 2006
Today the Center for Responsible Lending (CLR) issued a report:
.....
.....
Speakers:
Michael D. Calhoun, president, Center for Responsible Lending;
Pat Vredevoogd Combs, president, National Association of Realtors; and
Wade Henderson, executive director, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
Main points:
.......
.......
More than 20% of sub-prime loans made since 1998 will end in foreclosure. For comparison, the infamous "worst case" Houston housing market of the 1980s experienced a 15% peak foreclosure rate with 1 million homes abandoned.
.....
---------------------------------
I'm not endorsing that number - sadly my experience is that anything coming from an "advocacy" organisation is biased, exaggerated and shaded to make a point. Worse is that they dress it up as scientific fact and reduce the cred of science and stats along with reducing their OWN cred - and this applies as much to the CLR as it does to the NAR or even the BLS.. It all has to pass the smell test at a minimum so I'll have to read their report (http://www.responsiblelending.org/pdfs/FC-paper-12-19-new-cover-1.pdf) before I comment on the number.
But that perhaps is where the number comes from.
-K
Dreams of four- or even five-digit gold prices are thus in the cards. But when this house of cards collapses, even gold bugs are unlikely to enjoy the world that follows, proving once more the wisdom of the old adage: "Be careful what you wish for; you may receive it."
link
http://www.goldensextant.com/commentary33.html
Here's more proof that the Realwhores are losing it:
Mean Buyers
Are you ready for a global currency?
Worldwide money may be on the horizon as a way of simplifying the planet's 190 currencies -- the Esperanto of money.
By David R. Francis, Christian Science Monitor
Goodbye, dollar. So long, euro and yen. Hello, dey!
Dey? It's a proposed combination of the three currencies, which could eventually form the basis of a global currency.
A worldwide money won't emerge any day soon. Still, it's a longtime dream of some economists, who point out several advantages to simplifying the jumble of nearly 190 currencies.
For starters, the world trades about $1.2 trillion worth of currencies a day. If that market disappeared, it would save companies and individuals hundreds of billions of dollars a year in foreign-exchange and hedging costs.
Another benefit: no more national currency crises, which have riled Argentina, Mexico, Thailand and Russia in recent years. No country would have a balance-of-payments problem or need to maintain reserves of foreign assets, such as currency or bonds, to counter dramatic fluctuations in the market.Don't let retirement
sneak up on you.
Create a perfect plan.
The end of currency fluctuations would also stabilize international business. Manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic, for example, would no longer have to adjust to huge changes, such as the slide in the value of the euro from $1.17 initially in 1999 to 83 cents two years ago then back up to about $1.22. The value of stocks and other assets in countries now subject to high currency risks and inflation would also soar hugely as investors became more reassured of values.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker has said a truly globalized world economy needs a global currency.
The pitfalls of global currency
But world money has drawbacks too. No single nation could adjust its domestic monetary policy to remedy a specific economic situation. So the Fed could no longer lower interest rates to counteract an economic slump.
Also, central banks would not be in competition to maintain low-inflation rates for their money. Then there's the question of management. The Federal Reserve is independent of the White House, but is a creature of Congress and thereby not fully independent of the political process. So it "must always look over its shoulder to see how Congress is responding to its policies," says Richard Cooper, a Harvard economist who proposes a common currency for the major industrial democracies.
If finding a good governance system for a nation's central bank is hard, finding one for the industrial democracies, or the world, could prove even more difficult, he concedes.
Then there are the human ties. Losing a national currency is "a very emotional thing," says John Marthinsen, an economist at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. "It's like losing your flag."
Currency consolidation around the world
Still, there are moves to consolidate currencies -- of which the euro is only the most obvious example. Eight former French colonies in Africa have long shared a common currency. Since 1981, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank has provided the EC dollar to about a dozen island nations, including Antigua, Barbuda, Dominica, Montserrat and St. Lucia.
Next year, the Gulf Cooperation Council plans to launch a common currency for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Also in 2005, the West African Monetary Zone plans to introduce the eco to Ghana, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria.
Proponents are pushing for more. Last month, Robert Mundell, a Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate, and a small group of economists and officials considered plans for a world currency at his personal conference center in Siena, Italy. It is Mr. Mundell, famed for his supply-side economic theories, who talks of the "dey."
Also last month, the Single Global Currency Association held a conference on a world currency. It attracted only eight speakers and three attendees, says Morrison Bonpasse, who sold his temp agency last year to form the group. His timetable for a world currency: 2024.
-- © Copyright 2004 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
re: bubble shmubble
Regarding the links:
1. The Bloomberg story stating default rates of 2.51% up from 2.01% for subprime lending in September. The story is really mangled - she's placed relevant facts in two different paras, the "silly old moo" but I'm pretty sure that the numbers should be read as "Of the loans made in Jan-Jun 2006, the % of loans that were 90 days or more delinquent in Sep. 2006 was 2.01% and is 2.52% in Oct.
And later she's saying that for loans made over the year 2005 meaning been in existence for between 6 months and 18 months, the rate was 5.79% in Oct.
Now, "any phul noes" that loans take time to "season" and she should point that out. As time passes by, the rate of default increases and approaches some constant value asymptotically and one can use formulae then to calculate that asymptotic final value of default rates.
Quoting the "young" loan rate would be misleading. I wouldn't extrapolate very much from loans that hadn't been in existence for very long.
2. Good paper. Two key points that stand out. One is that their dataset was of 30 year fixed rate loans - Extapolating from that data set to the "exotics" that have been in existence in the last 5 years needs to be done really carefully. Their second point - of correlated risk is really important - that a single event ( say economic downturn ) could affect ALL loans in the same direction, NOT randomly affect them.
I'll have to see how one CAN extrapolate from that loans dataset to the modern one with its exotic loans. Should easily be more fruitful that refining the auto loans extrapolation model.
-K
You came here illegally, you stupidly wasted your money and raised house prices for the legal citizens, and then you got foreclosed. Now go back home.
http://www.larouchepub.com/pr/2006/061219foreclosure_crisis.html
Here Here!
How long til Trump starts dating Tara Conner?
Hey, the default rate for subprime mortgages made in Nov '06 is 0%, vs. 5% for subprimes made Nov '05. No subprime mortgages made in Nov '06 have gone through the foreclosure process, whereas many have done so that originated in Nov '05. That's a huge YOY improvement!
Wooooohooooo housing is coming back baby! IT TURNED OUT TO BE A FALSE DROP AFTER ALL WOOHOO! RE is going TO TEH MOON!
But many economists are becoming convinced that a housing slump, or even a crash, is inevitable because the high prices are not based on any economic reality.
Leading the pessimists is Peter Schiff, chief executive of Euro Pacific Capital, a broker based in Connecticut. He argues that house prices will experience an unprecedented collapse, falling by as much as 70 per cent in some areas.
If a house has risen in value several times over in recent years, then it is ludicrous to think that it cannot fall by that amount, he says, drawing a comparison with the dot-com boom and bust in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
http://business.timesonline
.co.uk/article/0,,9064-
2513894,00.html
The producer price index rose 2 per cent after a decline of 1.6 per cent in October, the strongest gain since 1974. There was also a sharp rise in core prices - excluding food and energy - which saw the fastest rise in 26 years, with an increase of 1.3 per cent last month.
The higher producer prices will encourage the Fed to be vigilant about consumer inflation in the coming months, making it more likely to keep rates on hold.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/
b2d3417a-8fce-11db-9ba3-
0000779e2340,_i_rssPage=5ae
dc804-2f7b-11da-8b51-
00000e2511c8.html
Wholesale prices surge at fastest rate in 32 years
Wholesale prices surged in November by the largest amount in more than three decades, led by huge increases in the cost of gasoline and new cars and trucks.
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that wholesale prices jumped 2 percent last month, the biggest advance since a similar 2 percent increase in November 1974, back during a decade when repeated oil shocks sent inflation spiraling.
Yields on two-year government bonds, among the most sensitive to the outlook for interest rates, rose to the highest since July 2002 as optimism among German executives suggests faster growth in the region's largest economy. Traders raised bets after today's report that the European Central Bank will increase rates twice more.
http://www.bloomberg.com/
apps/newspid=email_en&refer
=europe&sid=ahkScY49_.pk
Oracle Dumps Valley Office Space
Oracle co-president Safra Catz, quizzed in an earnings call by Bear Stearns' John DiFucci on the company's low cash flow for the quarter, explained that the company had plunked down some of its cash to get rid of excess real estate.
But he also seems to have trouble unloading his office real estate.
Despite Oracle's talk of positive trends in the quarter, buying out the lease is a bearish bet on the software giant's growth, at least in the Bay Area.
http://blogs.business2.com/
beta/2006/12/oracle_dumps_v
a.html
Yields have risen this month as traders reduced bets that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates next quarter to keep the economy from slumping. Interest-rate futures indicate that investors see a 17 percent chance that the central bank will reduce U.S. rates by March, down from almost 80 percent two weeks ago.
http://www.iht.com/articles
/2006/12/20/bloomberg/
bxbond.php
OK. I realize that many properties in formerly "hot" areas (such as coastal Florida) are owned by investors/"real estate agents". Still, I was surprised when I decided to make some inquiries about cash flow for condos in a particular condo complex I'm interested in buying in the Mirarmar Beach area of Destin, Florida.
Read the whole story at http://destinbubbleblog.blogspot.com/
Hey Keith - over here buddy - some truth on Iran...
To facilitate the
opening of a dialogue with the US, Iran offered
the United Nations
access to all its major nuclear installations in
order to neutralize the
hysterical warmongers among the formidable army
of ‘Israel First'
ideologues. According to the BBC (November 23,
2006):
"Iran will give inspectors access to records and
equipment from two of
its nuclear sites, the head of the UN's atomic
agency, the IAEA has
said. Mohamed El Baradei said he hoped Iran's
move would begin a series
of measures that would clear suspicions over its
nuclear program …
According to Mr. El Baradei, Iran has agreed to
let … the IAEA
inspectors take environmental samples from the
equipment at a former
military site at Lavizan. Iran has also said it
will give the UN access
to records from a uranium enrichment plant in
Natanz."
These reports by the IAEA provide the Baker Group
with ample
justification for opening a dialogue with Iran
and assuring the US
public and members of Congress– at least those
not under the thumb of
the Lobby – that they are not "appeasing" a
nuclear menace. Contrary to
the claims of the Israeli warlords and their
Lobby propagandists that
Iran is an "existential nuclear threat to the
survival of Israel", a
report by the IAEA issued on November 14, 2006
sent to the governor of
the nuclear watchdog, confirmed that Iran is now
principally using two
‘cascades' of 164 centrifuges apiece to enrich
uranium. (Financial Times
Nov. 15, 2006, p. 8) This means that Iran "still
falls well short of the
3,000 or so centrifuges that would be needed to
enrich uranium on an
industrial scale" (FT Nov. 15, 2006, p.8). Baker,
if he so wished, could
neutralize the entire Israel chorus by pointing
out that Iran has
grossly insufficient weapon-grade enriched
uranium for bomb making. He
could point out that, in any case, enriching
uranium is in total
compliance with the Non-Proliferation Nuclear
Treaty and that the IAEA
has extended access to oversee Iran's nuclear
projects.
Where are the markets headed next year? Here is one view:
Feng shui experts steeped in the ancient Chinese knowledge of geomancy, or natural energies, see a turbulent year ahead for both markets and mankind.
Metals such as gold, steel and zinc, top performers this year, could be tempered in 2007.
"The elements -- they are in conflict," said Raymond Lo, a practitioner for more than 10 years, whose office close to Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor is considered a repository of positive feng shui energies in this hotbed of capitalism.
Complete article at:
http://tinyurl.com/v7hwd
-Mammoth
Heres' one from the "hope springs eternal" file --> Wells Fargo's economists said today that the housing slowdown won't matter to the economy in 2007.
we're probably already in recession, amigos.
the chicago fed's CFNAI is forecasting slower growth and a further deceleration of inflation.
the mfg. sector continues in recession.
the stock market is being held up by private equity deals and stock buybacks, even as insiders dump shares like it's 1999. watch out after the first of the year.
the fed will panic in '07 and slash rates as recession and deflation take hold of the global economy and china lands hard. expect the fed funds rate to return to 1% by '08 and perhaps even lower thereafter.
we ith fooked, folks.
1) don't threadjack
2) don't bore
3) keep it clean
sweet!! I can refinance my mortgage for 4% and get a HELOC at 5%. Let the good times roll
"the fed will panic in '07 and slash rates as recession and deflation take hold of the global economy and china lands hard. expect the fed funds rate to return to 1% by '08 and perhaps even lower thereafter."
"The fed will panic in '07 and slash rates as recession and deflation take hold of the global economy and china lands hard. Expect the fed funds rate to return to 1% by '08 and perhaps even lower thereafter."
++++++++++++++
Then we get to watch ourselves turn into Japan, because I don't think the Fed will allow all the banks to go bankrupt in the coming years that have bad mortgage loans on their books; it would be too destablizing. So hello deflation....
Just MSM fluff I know.
http://www.adfero.co.uk/news/news/economy/
housing-crash-off-cards-$459272.htm
Jonathan Said is confident that British property prices will not crash Britain's housing market is unlikely to experience a sudden drop in property values, a leading economist has said.
Jonathan Said of the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) argues that despite continually rising house prices the strength of demand currently sustaining Britain's richly-priced market will prevent prices from falling off in the near future.
Mr Said points out five reasons for the unlikelihood of a crash, beginning with the housing shortage and Britain's ongoing demographic growth. He highlights the importance of the City's continuing attractiveness to international investors, ensuring that the market will remain propped up by global capital, and says that economic growth will exacerbate demand by increasing the desirability of property in certain areas of the country.
Finally, he argues that homebuyers base their willingness to purchase a house based on annual mortgage repayments rather than how long it takes to pay the mortgage off – meaning the market is less likely to respond negatively to higher-than-usual prices.
"Looking forward, as long as supply continues to fail to react to the burgeoning demand for housing, it is very unlikely that house prices will crash," Mr Said concludes.
"Higher interest rates, tight household bills and the world economic slowdown will cut back house price inflation, making talk of a possible crash more of a pub topic. But as long as the fundamentals remain unchanged, a housing bust is very much off the cards."End of story
What is the demographic here?
I see 2 ads for diet pills, an ad for a mortgage broker, an ad that will tell me the value of a home and an ad for liberal themed t-shirts.
Judging by this I would assume the bloggers here are fat liberals looking to buy real estate.
From FMW's reaearch
+++++++++++++++++++=
I have your source. Fujian and Guangdong are giant manufacturing centers in China.
iw
Exporters diversify away from U.S. dollar
Latest Updated by 2006-06-30 14:57:44
Domestic exporters are increasingly seeking to settle their trade in currencies other than the U.S. dollar to hedge against fluctuations in the yuan, the International Business Daily reported Thursday.
Citing a survey by the central bank, the paper said a growing number of businesses in key manufacturing provinces, including Fujian and Guangdong, were using non-dollar currencies to make settlements.
The paper cited a number of managers with exporting companies as saying that because they were used to using dollars and because of the smaller trading band for the dollar as compared with other currencies, they would continue to rely mainly on it, while experimenting with other currencies.
The paper cited Mei Xinyu, a researcher at the Commerce Ministry, as saying that exporters needed to start using more currencies other than the dollar to carry out pricing and payment, to cope with the uncertainties further yuan flexibility brought with it.
Mei suggested that companies expand their procurement of materials abroad, and even transfer some of their operations to other countries to minimize the impact of currency fluctuations.
Editor: Yan
http://www.newsgd.com/business/prospective/200606300052.htm
NEWSGD.COM
About us -- Newsgd.com
Newsgd.com is the premier online source of Guangdong news and information, fully displaying Guangdong through 10 channels including News, Business, Cities and Towns, Culture and Education and so on, and has gradually grown into an influential online source of Guangdong information for expats in and outside Guangdong.
Newsgd.com provides viewers with an online experience to browse up-to-the-date news as well as authoritative insight and opinion. For many Guangdong archive and information, we are the ONLY online provider.
At present, Newsgd.com plans to expand its offering to better its coverage on local news and information, especially Pearl River Delta, in an effort to boost the economic, cultural and social exchange between the region and the outside world.
And this from FMW
================
I checked the US Embassy in China's web page and the news on the Fed Bank conference was vague. I am surprised they are not more forth coming. (NOT)
This Looks Pretty credible to me.
iw
The current GSP with China is set to expire in December 2006
The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) extends duty-free treatment to many products imported from developing countries into the United States. GSP is an important way American companies keep costs down. Large corporations, as well as small businesses utilize the program. The current program is set to expire on December 31, 2006. A separate, more expansive program applies to imports from countries in Sub-Saharan Africa through 2015.
www.tradepartnership.com
China Concerns
Many members of Congress contend that China’s policy of pegging its currency (the yuan) to the U.S. dollar is a form of “currency manipulation” and that the current peg artificially lowers the price of Chinese exports to the U.S. and increases the price of U.S. exports to China. Those arguing for China to float its currency contend that doing so will increase the value of the yuan relative to the dollar and close the U.S. current account deficit with China. The Treasury Department has yet to accuse China of manipulation, and instead continues to express mere disappointment that trading in the yuan is "highly constricted" and that Treasury would "intensely scrutinize" its practices in future reports.
After a recent trip to China, Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have subdued their threats to seek legislation that would impose tariffs of 27.5 percent on Chinese imports if the yuan was not allowed to float more freely. China had allowed the yuan to rise by 2 percent earlier in 2005, the first change in more than 10 years, primarily due to pressure from Congress, but it has not budged since. Another bill has been introduced by Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Max Baucus (D-MT), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee that would penalize China – though not to the extent of the Schumer-Graham bill – if it does not meet its WTO obligations. The value of China’s currency and the debate regarding what the U.S. should do in response remains a hot topic in 2006, with U.S. businesses concerned about China’s currency policy, but equally concerned about efforts to combat it with policies that would hurt U.S. importers.
Trade Deficit Concerns
As U.S. current account deficits (a broad accounting of the net difference between the goods and services the nation exports and imports annually) continue to grow, concerns over the level of foreign capital being used to finance the deficit has been increasing. Foreign investors hold approx. 45% of publicly traded U.S. Treasury securities. If countries such as China and Japan become uncomfortable with their large share of U.S. assets in their holdings and reduce their purchases of U.S. assets, interest rates could rise and the value of the dollar could drop further, which could have a profound negative effect on the U.S. economy, and lead to spirited debate in Congress.
Generalized System of Preferences
Despite the fact that Congress has nearly 8 months to renew the program, it is possible that Congress may intentionally allow it to lapse this time.
http://www.conect.org/whats_new.html
Sunday, December 17, 2006 5:51:51 AM
There is more in Dec Thread number two.
Feb '07 huh? I'll mark my calendar...any specific day, maybe the 14th, a nice V-day present perhaps for the mrs, a bag full of Euros?
"Look for the sell off of USD by China (into Oil?)to begin very quietly in Feb of 07."
Source: Reuters
Jiang Dingzhi, vice chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, estimated that China needs no more than $700 billion in foreign currency reserves and, with the country facing losses on its dollar bond holdings, proposed exploring alternative channels for investing its $1 trillion stockpile.
http://tinyurl.com/yk9r47
Please Read. Then Comment.
Feb '07 huh? I'll mark my calendar...any specific day, maybe the 14th, a nice V-day present perhaps for the mrs, a bag full of Euros?
++++++++++++
Source Reuters.
Again. Please Read then Comment.
www.tradepartnership.com
They are the Export Org for the USA.
The Export Tax agreement with China expires in Dec of 06.
You are so dense.
Do you not see that the Congress is letting it expire with intent?
The beginning of the end for the USD.
DUH to you.
I do wonder though if it is true, and the "news" was reported a week ago, why has gold fallen this past week?
I just figured it out. You are Greg Swan, aren't you.
HA.
Good Bye.
Some of these anons are government agents. I wish I could get paid to type corporate fascist drivel.
I am Just Sharing........
The PrudentSquirrel newsletter
Latest rumored USD mini crisis
Last week, there were meetings between Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chair Bernanke, and other 'A' team US trade and banking representatives with China. This meeting resulted in a number of internet rumors and some verifiable comments that China is not giving in to US demands for a revalued Yuan/RMB. That is causing the US congress to get very mad, there are trade sanctions coming in 07. The Chinese evidently threatened to dump the USD - they have about a $trillion. Then a very interesting development - the Mid East oil nations stated they will be severely harmed by a collapsing USD if China dumps it. They threatened to embargo oil to China should they dump the USD. All of this shows how high the stakes are going into 07 for the USD - and how serious this USD situation is now. I think we can say, the USD situation is now at a crisis stage.
Formerly, the gold and other financial community has been tracking the financial mess the US has found itself in, with huge trade and fiscal deficits combined well over $1trillion a year. There has been so much written about this that people probably are saying 'you guys have been talking about this for years - and not much has happened!'
Well, I can say that, having tracked this issue closely now for years, we are at a definite turning point. The once 'far off' end of the USD is now at hand or at least very much at risk of happening. The recipe is now in place, irreconcilable differences between China and the US over their undervalued Yuan, and pending US trade sanctions with a bold Democratic US congress.
From what I have heard, when the Chinese floated their idea (threatened) to go ahead and actually dump the USD this last week, first the EU told them they would not sell them enough Euros. Then, the Mid East Oil nations said they will not sell China oil if they dump the USD. China, however is not the type of nation to like being dictated to. They won't let the US dictate to them with trade sanction threats, and they won't take any EU interference in this situation well either, nor will they take Arab oil hostility well either. Also, the moderate Arabs are concerned that a paralyzed US would leave them wide open to a hostile domineering Iran.
The problem China has is it cannot give much ground on the Yuan (their view), or else something worse they fear will happen to them -an economic contraction and millions of rampaging peasants who already feel the economic largess has bypassed them.
These factors add up to a very good chance that China will retaliate against the USD anyway in 07. I don't see them escaping from US trade sanctions this year, and the Chinese apparently believe they cannot do the things the US is demanding. So, somehow, this year, the Chinese may pull the plug on the USD.
USD - 07 a final year?
Chris Laird
www.PrudentSquirrel.com
Dec 21, 2006
I saw that same article. The dollar will implode. Either the Chinese cause it or our own homegrown government spending and scamster hamsters will do it in. Europe and Japan are trying to help the dollar and their efforts to sustain it are being short circuited by the hedge hogs and pig men. The dollar is doomed because of greed.
California led the nation in companies that laid off 50 or more workers in November, according to the latest government report released today.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said 27,433 initial claims for unemployment because of a mass layoff were filed in California last month – more than twice those in Michigan, which ranked second, with 10,636 claims.
http://www.ocregister.com/
ocregister/homepage/abox/
article_1394360.php
The construction and manufacturing industries laid off large numbers of people in November, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Thursday.
About 136,400 people working in various industries were laid off in the month.
Roughly half those cuts, or about 61,000 jobless claims, came from the motor vehicle, food, machinery and other manufacturers. That represents about 35 percent of all mass layoffs in the month, which are defined as layoffs of 50 or more people.
About 16 percent of the layoffs came from construction companies, mostly in heavy and civil engineering construction. Temporary help and waste services sectors also saw a big hit.
http://www.businessweek.
com/ap/financialnews/
D8M5FCTG2.htm
The housing downturn hit home in starkly human terms Monday when DiVosta Building Corp. said it will lay off nearly half its local workers.
The homegrown company hit the big time in 1998 when it was acquired by Pulte Homes, one of the nation's largest home builders.
http://www.palmbeachpost.
com/business/content/
business/epaper/2006/12/19/
m1a_divosta_layoffs_1219.
html
Bubble Shmubble said...
Dumb dumb? Are you 12?
-----------------
No, I'm trying to speak down to your level.
Nobody can afford that? Maybe you can't and that is why you rent your studio basement apartment for $550 including hot water. Don't assume everyone is in your situation. Using the 28% rule a $3290 montly payment would require a gross annual income of $137K, so a married couple each making $68K a year. Simply unheard of!!!! Average starting salary for an engineering grad was $55K for the class of 2005. I think at some point they'll hit the $68K mark and be able to afford the mortgage, don't you?
-----------------
Guy, you are confusing QUALIFYING and AFFORDING. My wife and I both GROSS $70k. With the current enviroment we could QUALIFY for 4x+ our GROSS to buy a house. That amounts to $560,000+!
Putting that in to the calc at 6%, my monthly would be $3,357 on the mortgage alone!!!
After taxes, def comp, pension, etc I only see $3,600 a month. As I sit here and breathe, I'm telliing you that I cannot AFFORD to pay 1/2 our TAKE HOME salary, or nearly 100% of mine, for a godd^mn house!
And we don't have the $$$$$ eng school loans, zero loans to be honest, I drive an altima, and she has a Camry. We want to have kids and don't want to haul them around in a beat up '87 Olds Cutlass being held together with duct tape. We have zero cc debt.
Your math is all fvcked up because you don't understand the difference between QUALIFICATION and AFFORDIBILITY.
DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS!!!!!
Housing Decline Is Business Story of '06
Sudden Stall in Home Sales, Construction, Prices Is Voted AP's Top Business Story of 2006
The nation's house party ended with a thud in 2006, leaving everyone from condo flippers to Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke waiting to see what would happen next.
The sudden stall in home sales, home construction and home prices -- and what that will mean for the economy -- was voted the top business story of the year by U.S. newspaper and broadcast editors surveyed by The Associated Press.
At the housing market's peak, buyers rushed to open houses, blank checks in hand. Lenders gave big-money mortgages to people who could barely afford their monthly payments. That ended in 2006, when home builders scuttled projects, walked away from land they'd hoped to develop and would-be buyers canceled orders.
The story bumped high energy prices from the top of the list, where it had been for the past two years. Many of the year's other top business stories were the latest installments of years'-long sagas, such as U.S. auto makers' woes and the unraveling of Enron Corp.
Some of the new faces on the list, including Hewlett Packard Co.'s former chairwoman, Patricia Dunn, and separately, the growing group of executives who manipulated their stock options, might wish they were elsewhere -- even at a lonely open house.
1. HOUSING SLIPS: Moody's Economy.com, a private research firm, projected that the median sales price for an existing home will decline in 2007 by 3.6 percent -- the first decline for an entire year in U.S. home prices since the Great Depression. One reason: Speculators fled the market. Not only did they stop buying, they put properties they owned up for sale.
"Investors were a bigger part of the market than many thought, including ourselves," Ara K. Hovnanian, the president and chief executive officer of homebuilder Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. said in June.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/
061220/ye_top_business_
2006_ye5a.html?.v=2
from yahoo news
Bonds rose sharply on the weaker economic data, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note falling to 4.55 percent from 4.60 percent late Wednesday. The dollar was lower against other major currencies, while gold prices fell.
Still and inverted yield curve. The sht term is at 4.97....
Saxon a top 30 subprime lenders slashed 170 jobs.
Morgan Stanley has slashed 170 jobs at its newly acquired subprime unit, Saxon Mortgage, including president and chief executive Mike Sawyer, MortgageWire has learned. One source familiar with Saxon said senior managers Jeff Parkhurst (wholesale), John Trapp (underwriting), and Dick Shepherd (legal) have also left the company. A spokesman for Morgan Stanley confirmed the job cuts. The investment banker officially took control of the publicly traded Saxon Mortgage on Dec. 4.
The Richmond, Va.-based firm ranks among the top 30 subprime lenders and servicers, according to the Quarterly Data Report. Kevin Rodman, a Morgan Stanley executive, will replace Mr. Sawyer. The Morgan spokesman said Saxon will focus its efforts on "wholesale lending and servicing." It recently closed Saxon's retail division and is consolidating different servicing locations into its platform in Fort Worth, Texas.
Subprime mortgage lenders are facing challenges:
• Increased competition and declining profitability.
• Interest rates. Many subprime mortgage lenders borrow money at short-term interest rates, lend it at long-term interest rates and turn a profit because long-term rates are usually higher than short-term rates.
Therefore, profit spread narrows when interest rates on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes goes below the rates for two-year Treasuries.
• Buybacks. Lenders typically sell the mortgages they issue to larger concerns that then package them into securities.
But if the mortgages do not meet certain standardized requirements, or if borrowers stop paying soon after the loans are made, lenders can be forced to buy them back.
• Lawyers are catching onto predatory practices like Software glitches so lenders are losing profit on law suits.
Not crediting payments to prematurely initiating foreclosure proceedings.
From Mon 18th Dec.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061218/wl_mideast_afp/iranforexbank_061218100958
---------------------------
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran announced it has ordered the central bank to use euros for foreign transactions and transform the state's dollar-denominated assets held abroad into the single European currency.
"The government has ordered the central bank to replace the dollar with the euro to limit the problems of the executive organs in commercial transactions," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters Monday.
"We will also employ this change for Iranian assets (in dollars) held abroad."
Elham implied that the move would apply to oil revenues from the world's number four crude producer, although it remains to be seen how this would be received by the market.
"Foreign income sources and oil revenues will be calculated in euros and we will receive them in euros in order to put an end to our dependence on the dollar," Elham said.
----------------------
This is potentially at the O*shit level because one of the conspiracy theories on the net that I attach some cred to is that the "real" reason the US invaded Iraq is that Iraq was going off "dollar denominated oil" into another currency for settling oil transactions. I do understand something about how totally vital it is to the US that that the $ remains the world's de facto transaction settling currency - yup, definitely enough to go to war over.
And then we have a report on the 19th Dec that the US is making sabre rattling moves - "pondering" a move of a 2nd aircraft carrier group to the Middle East...
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_061220.htm
This is definitely highly speculative - not too much data to go on yet - but worth nothing for sure and to keep track of too - holidays are definitely the time that smart PR people use to put out bad news or news they want to keep under the radar.
A mention is required of dailyreckoning.com which pointed out the Iraq story to me - I'd missed it.
-K
Housing Bubble's Fate Is Banking System's Destiny:
http://www.larouchepub.com/
eiw/public/2006/
2006_40-49/2006-48/pdf/
30-35_648_ecolede.pdf
Court Holds Lehman Liable for Lender Fraud
A U.S. appeals court in San Francisco has affirmed lower court decisions that Lehman Brothers, as a warehouse lender, is liable for the actions of a subprime lender that is engaged in fraudulent lending practices.
"We affirm the holdings of the district court imposing liability on Lehman for aiding and abetting a class-wide fraud perpetuated by First Alliance," Circuit Judge Richard Clifton says in Henry v. Lehman Commercial Paper. First Alliance Mortgage Co. filed for bankruptcy in 2000 to escape class action lawsuits, and a jury found Lehman was liable for $5.1 million in damages as FAMC's sole warehouse lender.
The jury concluded that Lehman officials were aware of FAMC's lending practices. The appeals court overturned the $5.1 million award, however, with instructions to the district court to reduce it. Lehman Brothers declined to comment. Nevertheless, the Lehman decision puts wholesale lenders on notice that they have to act if they have knowledge of fraudulent practices.
"If you have evidence to suggest that you actually know of a material violation, then you have to act on that knowledge," said Larry Platt, a partner at Kirkpatrick Lockhart Nicholson Graham in Washington.
A real estate broker has a fiduciary duty as a trustee to his/her client, the judge began. The evidence shows broker Hildegard Merrill violated that duty and defrauded her buyer, John Warren, by misleading him, he continued.
By taking title to the condominium in her daughter’s name with a promise to give Warren a quitclaim deed later and failing to deliver that quitclaim deed even after he repaid the $27,000 borrowed from Merrill, she fraudulently violated her fiduciary duty, the judge explained.
“From the beginning of the transaction, she did not intend to perform her promise of placing his name on title,” the judge emphasized. Therefore, imposition of a “constructive trust” is justified to return the condominium to its rightful owner, John Warren, he ruled.
Title to the condominium shall be quieted in Warren’s name, and non-economic damages of $15,000, plus $50,000 punitive damages, are imposed on broker Hildegard Merrill, the judge concluded.
http://www.naplesnews.com/
news/2006/dec/17/
robert_bruss_did_condo_
queen_broker_breach_
fiducia/?business
Homebuilding activity rebounded from a six-year low in November, but builders' applications for future projects fell to the lowest level in nine years, the government said Tuesday in a report suggesting the worst is not over for the housing market.
"The market in general is heading downward," said Dean Baker, co-director for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, who has long maintained that the run-up in prices and building in recent years has caused a market bubble. "There is a very big supply of new homes. Vacancy rates for owner-occupied units are at a record high. You have tremendous oversupply."
http://money.cnn.com/2006/
12/19/news/economy/
housingstarts/index.htm?
postversion=2006121912
Subprime loan businesses aren't exactly money maker these days.
So why did Citigroup buys affordable housing debt business of Capmark Financial?
Unless Capmark is bleeding red with foreclosures and Citigroup is trying to hide the fact that they have to buy back those bad loans because Citigroup backed Capmark sub prime loan business in the past this purchased does not make sense.
To FMW: Merry Christmas safe travels and a Happy New Year!
From: Every Real Man on this site!
Don't you ever leave 'us'!
Amen to that!
flyingmonkeywarrior 'Rocks the Casbah'!
Thanks Guys. Love the testosterone laced Kudos.
Merry Xucking Fhristmas, Hpers.
Lol
iw
I now understand you all rent. You haven't even got a rudimentary concept of income and taxation if you think out of $137K a year salary you are left wth $3,600 after taxes, def comp and pension.
$137K a year is $11,400 a month. Take out 20% in tax which is what the overall tax rate for them would be after deductions (not marginal tax rate, overall tax rate). Take out 6.2% in SS up to $94,000. Take out 1.5% medicare. Take out 10% 401(k) contribution and you are left over with $7,100 NET PAY per month.
Pay mortgage they're left with $3,900 a month. A couple can very easily live on $3900 a month after the mortgage has been paid off.
If you can't there'ssomething in your lifestyle that needs some serious changing.
"
After taxes, def comp, pension, etc I only see $3,600 a month. As I sit here and breathe, I'm telliing you that I cannot AFFORD to pay 1/2 our TAKE HOME salary, or nearly 100% of mine, for a godd^mn house!
And we don't have the $$$$$ eng school loans, zero loans to be honest, I drive an altima, and she has a Camry. We want to have kids and don't want to haul them around in a beat up '87 Olds Cutlass being held together with duct tape. We have zero cc debt.
Your math is all fvcked up because you don't understand the difference between QUALIFICATION and AFFORDIBILITY."
www.PrudentSquirrel.com says selldollars and buy gold...
WHAT A SHOCK!!!
He just happens to have a newsletter for $84 to sell you that teachers you how to buy gold. So I'm sure his analysis on the future of gold is very objective indeed.
You people cannot be this gullible.
Here is what Swiss America has to say about gold:
- Gold rush going public in 2007
- 2007 may well be the year when
mainstream investors rediscover
hard assets
- In the new year, oil and gold will
still rule
Hey and check this out, with all this objective analysis, Swiss America also has a newsletter to sell you!!!
Swiss America advertizes on nutjob talk radio shows like Michael Savage, G.Gordon Liddy, etc. Shows whose audience is paranoid, white, middle aged men terrified at the prospect of brown skinned foreigners (Arab or Latino) "taking over".
In addition to ads for Swiss America, there are constant ads for weight losspills, hair replacement pills and other such scams...just like the ads on this blog amazingly enough.
I see there is an ad for military singles here too. How desperate do you need to be to look for military singles?
Yeesh!!
-----------------
RE: anon
If you can't there'ssomething in your lifestyle that needs some serious changing.
-----------------
Nope, you need a reality check, not him, For a couple to use one person's entire takehome pay just for the mortgage is simply not prudent. You plan for the rainy day. Days like:
1. One partner loses their job.
2. One partner falls seriously sick or gets injured.
3. Long term savings, OVER and above the 401K.
Then there are their future plans of wanting kids. Responsible parents, especially those in their almost fortunate position, meaning that so long as they are prudent they almost can, would almost certainly want one partner to either stop work, cut back on the hours one parent works to LOOK AFTER THE KIDS PROPERLY, for a number of years. They know ther are NOT going to be DINKys for a certain number of years - its smart to work your finances on their basis.
And having kids and wanting to look after them properly is the NORMAL state of affairs.
And you should similarly be prudent about your expectations for career development and salary increases. Always do a WHAT-IF-NOT analysis. Don't do the career equivalent of these insane( and illegal) "cash back at closing" deals which monetize future potential equity gains at the time of a buy, way before they have had actualized ( and perhaps never will!). That is chancy and risky.
This couple clearly is careful about the risks they take. Quite right too.
-K
Nope, you need a reality check, not him, For a couple to use one person's entire takehome pay just for the mortgage is simply not prudent.
Depends on the income level. If I make $250,000 a year, yea 1/2 of that for a mortgage is a bit much. If I make $70K a year, it's not.
You plan for the rainy day. Days like:
1. One partner loses their job.
the partner gets another job. I have been laid off twice in my life.Both times found something better within 3 months. During the down time, that is what #3 is for.
2. One partner falls seriously sick or gets injured.
disability insurance
3. Long term savings, OVER and above the 401K.
certainly
Then there are their future plans of wanting kids. Responsible parents, especially those in their almost fortunate position, meaning that so long as they are prudent they almost can, would almost certainly want one partner to either stop work
Thanks for the advice Dr. Laura. Should I also have abstained from pre-martital sex?. Sorry Dr. Laura but I am not a Christian wack job, I think a woman working is not the end of the world.
They know ther are NOT going to be DINKys for a certain number of years
Newsflash again Dr. Laura. Not everyone WANTS kids. I don't. My wife doesn't. I know it's hard for Christian wackjobs to understand, but trust me, there are many people who do not want kids.
And having kids and wanting to look after them properly is the NORMAL state of affairs.
What is the obession with kids? Get over it man.
Always do a WHAT-IF-NOT analysis. Don't do the career equivalent of these insane( and illegal) "cash back at closing" deals which monetize future potential equity gains at the time of a buy, way before they have had actualized ( and perhaps never will!). That is chancy and risky.
Agree there, although I think you're stretching a little comparing a cash closing with career expectations.
This couple clearly is careful about the risks they take. Quite right too. I disagree. $3900 a month after mortgage is more than enough to to live quite well and put away a good chunnk as well for a rainy day fund. When my wife was in medical school and I was in grad school we lived on less than 1/2 of that and managed to get by.
Besides this whole discussion arose from someone saying that **nobody** could afford a $3200 mortgage. I said a 2 income couple making $137K combined can. And this couple would mean 2 $68K a year incomes...very reasonable.
Is it the absolute best allocation of income? Probably not. Is buying a $50K BMW the best allocation of money? No. Yet I don't see anyone predicting $15K BMWs in 2008 either.
is there an all of the above option, I choose it
Wow! comparing me to Dr. Laura ! That's a little tough - the websites that critique her echo my thinking about her well. There are several around.
As regards the rest of your comment - I read his comment - I was talking about HIS situation - not some abstract one, not a 250K income one, not one where people didn't want kids - simply his circumstances as described by him.
You've got a problem - as someone else said - you just want to scrap. Why don't you just sign your messages. Then I can stay outta your way.
That's all.
-K
www.rense.com
Truth revealed.
100% guaranteed JUDEN FREE
So you are a nazi.
- 2007 may well be the year when
mainstream investors rediscover
hard assets
That was last year.
"They post their sources"
LOL!! Their "sources"?
Here is their top "news" story of today:
LIFELONG LEARNING, THOUGHT CONTROL & BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION
Nancy Levant
December 19, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
What do 12 years of tax payers’ public (mental health) education, universities that spit out 21-year-olds who are $50,000.00 to $100.000.00 in student loan debt, and “lifelong learning” have in common? Try these answers on for size:
* Children who are socially molded by community/consensus politics
* 16 years of education by state-sponsored NEA/Socialist teachers (our taxes pay their salaries, too)
* Student loan debt that disqualifies young adults for mortgages (no private property)
* Life-long job and wage enslavement due to life-long debt and mis-education
And on it goes.
Her source? Aside from her ass I can'tsee any.
so now nazi = contrarian...nice
the flyinh moneky has been listening/watching Bill O'Reilly a little too much
did you buy his book too?
Good of you to comment since I am sure you watch and listen to these shows to conclude your own opinion, grasshopper.
And having kids and wanting to look after them properly is the NORMAL state of affairs.
What is the obession with kids? Get over it man.
DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!!!
Then there are their future plans of wanting kids. Responsible parents, especially those in their almost fortunate position, meaning that so long as they are prudent they almost can, would almost certainly want one partner to either stop work
Thanks for the advice Dr. Laura. Should I also have abstained from pre-martital sex?. Sorry Dr. Laura but I am not a Christian wack job, I think a woman working is not the end of the world.
AH! The ole Ad Hominen attack. clearly you know your position is wrong.
Depends on the income level. If I make $250,000 a year, yea 1/2 of that for a mortgage is a bit much. If I make $70K a year, it's not.
------------
Boy you are so retarded. You can't REALLY think that someone who makes 250k/yr struggles more than someone that makes 70k/yr!
1/2 = 1/2 in any language! But I rather "suffer" with the 250's guy's house than the 70 guy's!!
Pls stop. You are embarassing yourself.
Besides this whole discussion arose from someone saying that **nobody** could afford a $3200 mortgage. I said a 2 income couple making $137K combined can. And this couple would mean 2 $68K a year incomes...very reasonable.
-----------------------
Only a desperate FB troll would try and tell someone he never met what he can or can't afford.
Take your hypotheticals and stick them. I explained to you a real life situation that parallels your b.s. one. *I'm* telling you that *I* can't.
I'm sorry your dad never sat you down and tought you the importance of budgets and fical sensibility. Mine did. Maybe you would not be in whatever jam you are in now.
I have a very nice M-C life and want to maintain it. I want to pass such existance to another generation of my family. I'm also sorry your wife doesn't want kids, or you. Mine does. And I'm not jeopardizing their yet to be conceived lives by flusing 1/2 of our take home away on a depreciating asset.
Maybe I'll buy your forclosure from you.
As regards the rest of your comment - I read his comment - I was talking about HIS situation - not some abstract one, not a 250K income one, not one where people didn't want kids - simply his circumstances as described by him.
-------
THANK YOU
To me, the housing bubble is part of the general collaterized debt/ credit bubble which is the result of hugely flawed monetary policies conducted by the reserve banks of the developed countries. The flawed policies came about because they simply didn't understand macro economics - I think the monetarists are wrong - not AS wrong as the Keynsians - but wrong and the austrian / von mises school of economics right.
Anyhooo, from the British torygraph today, signs of the private equity / LBO bubble collapsing. The saddest part of all this is WE HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE - I was re-reading Barbarians at the Gate recently - the fall of RJR Nabisco. Through the late 80s we again ( there was another in the 20s !) had another credit bubble with an associated housing bubble, an associated spree of LBOs all ending in general debt liquidation AT THE COST OF THE TAXPAYER.
--------------------------
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml;jsessionid=MVFQTSAYG0EBJQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0?xml=/money/2006/12/23/cndebt23.xml
Damovo white flag to be first of many
By James Quinn Business Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:07am GMT 23/12/2006
The ailing telecoms group Damovo has become the first major casualty of the current private equity cycle after agreeing to hand over its equity to its bondholders. It is likely to be followed in the new year by a string of restructurings and collapses of private equity-owned companies struggling to operate under significant levels of debt.
Under the new plan, agreed by creditors yesterday, Damovo will swap €358m (£240m) of fixed and floating-rate bonds due in 2012 for equity in the company. Damovo was previously owned by the British-based private equity house Apax Partners, which bought it for $480m (£245m) in 2001.
More than 94pc of the bondholders agreed to the changes, which will also see €50m of new bonds convertible into shares of Enterprise Digital Architects, Damovo's Italian unit.
The restructuring, led by the boutique investment bank Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, was necessary because Damovo could not afford to pay its debts as they fell due.
....
.....
As a result, Damovo began to delay payments to suppliers, making it harder to carry out any new work as suppliers refused to do so until they received payment owed. The €50m from the bond sale will be used to pay some suppliers, who were owed €39m at the end of September.
Earlier this week, it emerged that the troubled DIY retailer Focus is to start debt restructuring talks with its creditors to avoid insolvency. The company, which is also owned by Apax, alongside Duke Street Capital, is thought to have senior debt of more than £160m.
The rating agency Moody's last week downgraded Focus's debt, warning it might not be able to keep up with debt repayments. Focus is due to start talks with bondholders, including Goldman Sachs and Och-Ziff Capital, in the new year.
Little Chef is also understood to be struggling and looking for new investors, while the cut-price supermarket chain Kwik Save is understood to be trying to restructure its debt for a fresh round of fund-raising. Damovo's default comes in the week that Jon Moulton, founder of Alchemy Partners, warned that private equity firms faced a tenfold increase in corporate defaults across Europe because of over-borrowing.
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-K
Keith,
Comments on this? That's some fucked up shit.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
main.jhtml?xml=/
news/2006/12/21/nveil21.xml
$7,141 Property Taxes 2006
OUCH!!! Man you Californians are idiots to put up with property taxes like that.
2 homes sold in my subdivision this month. All the homes were built in late 2001 and early 2002 by the same builder. All homes are single story with lots ranging from 0.14 to 0.30 acre. Original pricing was $175K to $220K. There are 112 homes in the subdivision and as of now there are 6 others for sale.
I look and I look but I fail to see evidence of this supposed crash, at least in my neck of the woods.
All sales from the subdivision 11/05 to 12/06:
$400,000, 1964 sq ft
No Pool
$203 sqft
Sold: 12/2006
$450,000, 2325 sq ft.
No pool
$194 sqft
Sold 12/2006
$400,000 1,964 sqft
No pool
$204 sqft
Sold: 9/2006
$419,000 1,964 sqft
Pool
$213 sqft
Sold: 7/2006
$440,000 2,124
No pool
$207 sqft
Sold: 7/2006
$420,000 1,964 sqft
Pool
$213 sqft
Sold: 6/2006
$425,000 1,964 sqft
Pool
$216 sqft
Sold: 6/2006
$450,000 2,325 sqft
No Pool
$193 sqft
Sold: 5/2006
$476,000 2,311 sqft
Pool
$206 sqft
Sold: 5/2006
$415,000 2,124 sqft
No pool
$195 sq ft
Sold: 4/2006
$450,000 2,315 sqft
No pool
$194 sqft
Sold: 4/2006
$401,000 1,950 sqft
Pool
$206 sqft
Sold: 4/2006
$400,000 2,315 sqft
No pool
$173 sqft
Sold: 1/2006
$400,000 1,950 sqft
Pool
$205 sqft
Sold: 1/2006
$410,000 1,964 sqft
Pool
$209 sqft
Sold: 12/2005
$462,000 2,325 sqft
No pool
$199 sqft
Sold: 11/2005
$455,000 2,311 sqft
No pool
$197 sqft
Sold: 11/2005
Whats this Casey has a Padawan
http://foreclosureboy18.blogspot.com
I know everyone is worried about the overall market and what it means to the economy and their pockets.
You must also look at it this way---the more focus and energy we give something, good or bad, the quicker it will manifest itself.
You might think that I'm a bit loony, but this is fact, ladies and gents.
Focus on what you want to happen, focus on where the market is doing well, focus on you getting commissions if you're a realtor, instead of the doom and gloom badwagon that everyone seems to be on.
Treasury Bonds Down on Profit-Taking
So they say
U.S. interest rate swap spreads widened for the third day on Wednesday, tracking a slight rise in government bond yields as investors pared back their expectations of an interest rate cut next year.
Analysts said market talk of some receiving interest on fixed rate swaps could prevent the 10-year spread from widening above 50 basis points.
With mortgage borrowers who have less-than-perfect credit and the banks that lend to them under pressure, investors are watching to see if the effects will be felt in collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs.
That's because the mortgage-lending money trail ends at the asset-backed CDOs, which are backed largely by subprime mortgage bonds. CDOs are investment vehicles that use bonds as collateral to back tranches of risk sold to individual investors with specific needs.
In recent years, bonds backed by these subprime mortgage loans have enjoyed high valuations due to demand from CDOs. However, if homeowners begin defaulting in larger numbers ...
On the surface, things at NovaStar look fine.
But short sellers are betting that recent and potential negatives will make them money. Here are some possible reasons:
- Rocky fundamentals.
- Spiking credit problems.
- Big debt repayment obligations.
- Potential loss of short-term liquidity.
- Scary trading pattern.
http://www.bloggingstocks.
com/2006/12/18/
short-stories-profiting-
from-the-subprime-mortgage-
bust/
WASHINGTON – "The Selective Service System is planning a comprehensive test of the military draft machinery"
"Meanwhile, the secretary for Veterans Affairs said that "society would benefit" if the U.S. were to bring back the draft and that it shouldn't have any loopholes for anyone who is called to serve."
"A day earlier, President Bush said he is considering sending more troops to Iraq and has asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to look into adding more troops to the nearly 1.4 million uniformed personnel on active duty."
Click Here
Next time around, the Selective Service will be drafting America’s young women to send off to war. The Democratic sl@#e ball Charles Rangel of course was chosen to introduce the new selective service bill just recently with the selling point that "IT'S A MATTER OF FAIRNESS."
Here’s what Rangel had to say about his legislation that is "really meant to show my opposition to a unilateral preemptive attack against Iraq by the U.S."
"In brief, my bill would replace the existing Selective Service law to establish a system in which all American men and women, as well legal permanent residents, aged 18 to 26, would be subject to compulsory military service or alternative civilian service. Deferments would be limited to those completing high school, up to the age of 20, with no exemptions for college or graduate school." Click Here
The attack on blogs by the lower forms of humanity has begun…. You must be doing something right!
“The participatory Internet, in combination with the hyperlink, which allows sites to interrelate, appears to encourage mobs and mob behavior.”
“Of course, once a technosocial force like the blog is loosed on the world, it does not go away because some find it undesirable. So grieving over the lost establishment is pointless, and kind of sad. But democracy does not work well, so to speak, without checks and balances. And in acceding so easily to the imperatives of the Internet, we've allowed decay to pass for progress.” Click Here
When the cat is away the mouse will play.
Spreads on U.S. interest-rate swaps widened on Monday as weaker Eurodollar pressured the front-end spreads and hedge unwinding moved out longer-dated spreads, traders said.
Swap spreads expanded by 0.75 basis point to 1.00 basis point from late Friday.
Most 2007 and 2008 Eurodollar futures ended 0.005 to 0.010 lower than Friday's close, as traders trimmed their expectations of the Federal Reserve lowering the federal funds rate in the first quarter of 2007.
Eurodollar futures are the benchmarks in the floating-rate exposure of a short-dated swap position.
"Short-dated spreads remain very directional with respect to speculative position in Eurodollar futures. As speculative long positions get unwound, 2-year swap spreads could widen several basis points from current levels," said Fidelio Tata, interest rate derivatives strategist at RBS Greenwich Capital, in a report released on Monday.
While most major swap participants have closed their books for the year, some speculative players have set up short positions, such as betting on wider spreads in reaction to surprisingly strong economic data, a swap trader said.
"We may still have some business to do. There is some short spread positioning going on," the trader said
A bubble waiting to burst
It’s been more than a year since we’ve heard from those who denied there was a housing bubble.
Since then, the industry boosters, along with the “soft landing” crowd at the Federal Reserve, have coalesced around the idea that maybe the market got a bit frothy after all, but now the worst is behind us.
But now you get reports about delinquency rates suddenly soaring on all those subprime mortgages. They are starting to cause real heartburn for pension funds and other investors who bought securities backed by those mortgages.
After the subprime loans will come the 100 percent, interest-only loans, followed by the meltdown in the overbuilt multifamily housing sector.
http://www.kansascity.com/
mld/kansascity/business/
personal_finance/
16303541.htm
When will BOJ raise rate?
Japan's consumer price gains probably accelerated in November, giving the central bank room to increase the lowest interest rates among major economies.
-------------------
Harbourton Mortgage Investment Corporation: Sunday 12-24-2006
To All HMIC Business Partners,
It is with deep regret that we announce Harbourton Mortgage Investment Corporation will cease operations effective the close of business today, December 20th, 2006.
We are extremely proud to have had the opportunity to serve our Brokers, Investors and Business Partners and wish everyone much success in the future. Provided below are areas of contact:
McLean Operations Center
Ronda Baker
(703) 584-4408
....
....
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The above from www.hmic.com and I got pointed to it by http://www.forsakencraft.com/mainframe.html
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde : "To lose 1 subprime broker may be unfortunate to lose two looks like carelessness, to lose 3 - we have a trend"
Nearest that I can tell HMIC did $1b worth of biz in 2005. "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon we are talking serious money".
They closed their doors for the usual reason. The MBS they sold off contained sufficient number of non-performing loans so didn't meet the warranty so they were returned to sender for money back. But it was "CAN'T PAY WON'T PAY". So now the owner of the packaged MBS is out of packet - And he'll no doubt try to collect on his insurance, i.e. some derivative contract he had ( he HAD surely). And the seller of the derivative contract ? They probably laid off that risk too... But you can't keep laying it off - and at each pass of the buck, somebody chisels a bit for themselves, reducing the intrinsic value - and finally we can talking micro-percentages of yield here so leveraging is the only way to make any money - so even though the derivatives may have values of trillions, the underlying deep pocket may only be a few billion.
"A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon we are talking serious money"
Damn I wish I knew how to spot who the deep pocket here is..
-K
Venezuela has expressed interest in an Iranian move which seeks to ask buyers to pay for oil in euro rather than US dollars.
The oil-rich nation said it planned to see if a similar scheme could be introduced to its crude exports.
Iran, which is the world's fourth-biggest oil producer, has already asked customers to pay for its oil in euro because of the current weakness of the dollar.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006
/1224/oil.html
What's next for Valley housing market
The defining event of 2006 in this real estate mad state was the housing slowdown. Now, the question is: What happens next?
It was a national phenomenon, dragging on the economy, slamming the results of large, publicly held house builders and home-improvement chains, and costing perhaps hundreds of thousands of construction jobs. Foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies have shot up, especially for people who took out subprime mortgages.
In Phoenix, the slowdown is palpable, from the shelved plans for high-profile skyscraper projects in the central city to halted, half-finished subdivisions on the metropolitan fringes.
http://www.azcentral.com/
arizonarepublic/viewpoints/
articles/
1224talton1224.html
The Center for Responsible Lending, which has offices in Oakland, North Carolina and Washington, D.C., predicts that one in five of these loans approved during the hot 2003 through 2005 real estate market will default. That’s a rate of default nearly twice the norm.
The center ranks San Joaquin County as seventh among 378 metropolitan areas in the U.S. for the percentage of homeowners who will default on these loans. It predicts that 23.4 percent of these loans in the county will end in foreclosure. Six other areas in the state are in the top 10, with Merced and Bakersfield topping the list.
The number of actual foreclosures in San Joaquin County this year increased sharply in January and again in October. RealtyTrac, an Irvine-based company that tracks foreclosures in California, shows that foreclosures in San Joaquin County have tripled from last year. The company reported 1,228 foreclosures in the second quarter of 2006, compared with 374 for the third quarter in 2005.
http://tracypress.com/
content/view/6482/2/
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